'Fail Whale' artist stars in first North American exhibition (photos)

Road Trip at Home: Yiying Lu, who made the iconic Twitter image, has a show to help launch her 'art for everywhere' startup, Walls360.

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Yiying Lu with Mobile Elephant

SAN FRANCISCO--Yiying Lu may never create anything more famous than the "Fail Whale," the iconic image she designed and that Twitter has for years used to signify that it is down. But now, she is a co-founder of a start-up called Walls360 that hopes to revolutionize the wall graphics market.

The basis of Walls360's business is what co-founder John Doffing calls "premium, self-adhesive, repositionable, fabric paper," which can be placed anywhere without harming the surface it's put on and can be moved around up to 100 times.

Walls360 went live to the public on Wednesday, and to celebrate, the company is hosting a launch party here Thursday night. The party is doubling as Lu's first-ever North American exhibition.

Here, Lu poses during set-up for the exhibition with "Mobile Elephant," a design that mixes the elephant and birds image that inspired the Fail Whale with a depiction of a mobile phone.

Cog Lion

Cat tangram

One of the things that Walls360 hopes to sell a lot of is tangrams, which are seven-piece designs that can be re-arranged in an infinite number of orientations. This is a tangram fashioned to look like a cat.

Fishy Kitty

Kissing penguins

This is "Kissing penguins," or "Win Penguins," which Lu designed for the wedding invitation of Dale Larson and Laura La Gassa. Larson said all he asked was that he and La Gassa be able to be the first ones to use the design. Now, Walls360 is selling it.

Graphic mice

Guy Kawasaki

After tech icon Guy Kawasaki saw Conan O'Brien's "Pale Whale," he wanted his own personal design. So Lu said she created this play on the "Fail Whale," which depicts Kawasaki riding a hoisted butterfly.